Mage? Magic Engineer!

The speed with which Master Kano changed his tune, and the firmness of his new stance, surpassed the level of any ordinary Disguise Spell. Only the Ninth Ring spell, Physical Transformation, could compare.

Of course, the meeting remained perfectly harmonious, save for the host, Kou Bo, a bird, who was cackling madly and rolling on a tree stump with laughter.

He was the eldest, so no one said anything to this old child.

"Your prized pupil, Rorschach, is indeed exceptionally talented... Just three days ago, he was asking me for advice on how to become a Great Mage."

"That’s right, I received a letter too." Kano was still secretly hurt that Rorschach hadn’t told him anything, but now that Feuerbach had mentioned it, he finally remembered receiving the inquiry. He had just assumed the boy’s success was going to his head and that he was getting delusional about becoming a Great Mage, so he had dashed off a casual reply telling him to study hard and not get carried away with wild ideas.

’I can’t believe he was serious!’

Feuerbach let out a soft sigh, his owl-like features showing a surprising world-weariness. "Today, after discovering the Spell Cloud could support Ninth Ring Magic, I immediately performed a verification on him. He is a Great Mage, without a doubt. I then came straight to this meeting to report to you all.

"Most High Tier Casters focus their primary energy on research and cultivation. They don’t concern themselves with matters outside their towers, nor do they often interfere.

"It would be fine if Master Rorschach were like that. Unfortunately, he is exceptionally active in the affairs of Bayern. He’s not only running a state-within-a-state called the Special Zone, but based on my past conversations with him, I am certain that Rorschach intends to use his Great Mage status to achieve other goals...

"Viewed in this light, he is even more dangerous than the Necromancer Master, and the impact he could have is even more unpredictable."

Feuerbach proceeded to recount the "man of the hour’s" various activities in Bayern from the perspective of the Tower of Secret Techniques. When he got to the Tower’s ordeals and drastic changes since June, it was like listening to the protagonist of a lewd visual novel tearfully recounting how some blond thug dragged her step by step into the depths of the Abyss.

Finally, he shot a fierce glare at Kano. "He really is your student, through and through."

The audience was thoroughly entertained. No one sympathized with the head of the Tower of Secret Techniques. Instead, they all raised their primary wing feathers to Kano in a gesture that screamed, ’Impressive!’

Kano, however, tried to turn the tables on his own embarrassment by seizing on a peripheral detail. "Wait, are you telling me that after you confirmed Rorschach’s Casting Level, you just left without making any kind of gesture?"

"What else was I supposed to do? Our meeting was about to start." Feuerbach saw nothing wrong with his own abruptness.

"..."

Kou Bo stepped in to smooth things over. "We all know Feuerbach is dedicated to his research and isn’t one for social pleasantries. Not like you, Kano..."

Kano slapped his forehead with a wing. "Are you an idiot! Since Rorschach is valuable enough for us to recruit, couldn’t you have made more of a gesture? This is the most important, most thrilling moment in a Caster’s career, and you, his senior, show no reaction? What did you think he was, a Basic Level Mage?"

"I already congratulated him verbally," the head of the Secret Technique Tower insisted. "Wasn’t that enough? When I advanced, I was in my research lab, same as any other day. I even had to clean up the mess from my own energy overflow... There was no celebration, no ceremony... Don’t we all experience it that way?"

"The first thing I did was notify my master, and I immediately received an invitation from the Elder Council..."

"To curry favor with me, the King granted my family a fine estate after my promotion..."

"All my senior apprentices came to congratulate me. I knew they weren’t being sincere, but seeing them force out their congratulations made it all the more satisfying..."

Feuerbach listened to the other Great Mages’ recollections and stared speechlessly at the sky. After he’d composed himself and everyone else had finished, he earnestly put an end to the topic that was clearly upsetting him. "Are we getting seriously off-topic?"

...

In the past, the Magic Guild and the entire Mage community had always tried to maintain a "neutral" status. Now, that tradition was utterly broken.

But at least until now, nearly all combatants of the Great Mage level had remained behind the scenes. The mages who went to battlefields or participated in the production and infrastructure of various nations were all Middle Level or below.

The purge of the Necromancers had been a move of last resort, and the actions of the Elder Council were currently welcomed by both the Empire and the Republic. A suspended equilibrium existed between the Great Mages of all nations. To most of the world, they were figures of legend, existing only in vague imagination. Shielded from normal society by the Magic Guild and the Mage Towers, the true faces of the Great Mages remained unseen.

Rorschach was clearly an exception. He seemed determined to openly use his influence as a Great Mage to achieve goals in other domains, and he always operated out in the open. Once such a precedent was set, it would undoubtedly alarm rulers and the public alike.

It wasn’t that the assembled heads were afraid of common people. Rather, they feared that from this point forward, Great Mages would be dragged into the continent’s politics, whether they wished it or not. Then, their every action would be magnified, provoke needless reactions, and be subjected to endless speculation about their loyalties—all without the buffer of the Magic Guild and the Mage Towers.

Kano, with his social maneuvering, and Feuerbach, drinking tea as a guest of the Royal Family—in reality, they were all very careful. Even when Pascal appeared before the National Assembly during the most turbulent period in Valois, the public saw him only as a representative of the Magic Guild and mages in general. Very few knew that Pascal was the student of the Great Mage Kano.

’I hope this young man knows where to draw the line...’ After the meeting concluded, Feuerbach returned to Lansite and let out what must have been his tenth sigh of the day. "I’m here to see Master Rorschach."

Caroline still wasn’t used to the title. It felt completely unreal. ’When did my own student reach the pinnacle of all Casters?’ And Rorschach himself showed no sign of acting any differently.

"Didn’t you say a representative from the Elder Council would be looking for me?" Rorschach, having somehow caught wind of his arrival, was already in the guest room.

"...I am the representative of the Elder Council." The council’s most unanimous decision had been to make Feuerbach the one to contact Rorschach, as a way to make amends for his earlier discourtesy. "Now, on behalf of the Aurora Elder Council and the Magic Guild of the Ferolun Continent, I offer you my most sincere congratulations on your promotion, achieved through your extraordinary talent..."

’He’s reading that completely deadpan, without a shred of emotion or inflection!’ After accepting the congratulations and the gifts from Kano and Kou Bo, Rorschach took the crimson, gold-gilded Mage Robe from Feuerbach’s hands.

"The Elder Council will tacitly approve your upcoming actions, and the Tower of Secret Techniques will offer a degree of cooperation. However, we require some assistance from you. For example, helping to realize the ideals of your teacher, Master Kano... The Thirteen Magic Towers will monitor the activation of nodes on the Tree of Truth. At the same time, we hope you will cooperate with us to acquire data on the usage of the Tree of Law..."

"Can I consider this a transaction?"

Feuerbach corrected the blunt phrasing. "It is two collaborative efforts. The Tower of Secret Techniques also invites you to participate in the analysis and monitoring of the Tree of Truth."

"In that case, before you commit, you should probably understand my next move..."

As Rorschach spoke with Feuerbach, in Munich, Wertzburg, Newren, and other major cities across Bayern, many citizens took to the streets. They soon entered into confrontations with security personnel, and violence erupted. Some even attempted to storm the Royal Palace.

When the Security Teams could no longer control the situation, the Royal Family prepared to dispatch the army to suppress the riots. However, they then received intelligence about large-scale personnel movements in the Special Zone. With Lansite in a position to threaten both Newren and the capital city of Munich, the Royal Family was suddenly faced with an impossible choice: whether to deploy the army at all, and if so, where.